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Architecture
Special Issues
Spaces and Practices of Everyday Community Resilience
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Spaces and Practices of Everyday Community Resilience

A special issue of Architecture (ISSN 2673-8945).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2025) | Viewed by 15182

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Meike Schalk

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
KTH School of Architecture, 10044 Stockholm, Sweden
Interests: late modernist welfare housing; welfare landscapes; pratice-oriented research methods; feminist spatial practices; gendered labour; equality, diversity, inclusion policies; urban pedgagogies; practices of resilience
Dr. Daniela Calciu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Basics of Architectural Design, “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism, 010014 Bucharest, Romania
Interests: urbanity; modernity; architectural history; architectural theory; participatory urban processes; transformative collaboration; social habitat; community resilience
Dr. Oana Druta

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of the Built Environment, Eindhoven University of Technology, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Interests: new living concepts; housing precarity; young adult housing pathways; participatory urbanism; placemaking; urban commons; post-growth

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue aims to study the collective everyday practices of community resilience and their spaces. We invite contributions that address collaborations between citizens, researchers and municipalities that have stimulated the organizing capacity of communities. We are interested in discussing the methods that have been developed for recognizing, mapping, connecting, and strengthening everyday practices of collective resilience; the digital and other toolkits that have been created for connecting people and neighbourhoods; and the relevant strategies and tactics, processes and procedures, pedagogical formats, and policies developed and their scales.

The project attends to the needs of cities and neighbourhoods and collective efforts that aim to increase capacity for local processes of ecological transition grounded in urban livability, justice, inclusivity and active community engagement. This Special Issue will answer the following questions: Who are the actors, initiators, mediators, and multipliers of these emerging networks? Where do they thrive? What transformational imaginaries may they inspire?

We invite researchers, practitioners, educators, administrators and policy-makers to contribute to this Special Issue. Broad themes for contributions may include transformative learning practices, urban commons ecologies and economies, redefining everyday practices, and civic resilience.

Dr. Meike Schalk
Dr. Daniela Calciu
Dr. Oana Druta
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Architecture is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • civic resilience
  • spaces of resilience
  • everyday practices
  • transformative learning
  • urban commons

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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18 pages, 15263 KB  
Article
Community Action: An Architecture and Design Pedagogy
by Torange Khonsari
Architecture 2025, 5(4), 115; https://doi.org/10.3390/architecture5040115 - 20 Nov 2025
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1099 | Correction
Abstract
As architectural educators interested in community engagement and learning about everyday practices in the city, we recognize that teaching community engagement in a practical rather than abstract way is key. This paper presents community-engaged architecture and design pedagogy as potential methods for informing [...] Read more.
As architectural educators interested in community engagement and learning about everyday practices in the city, we recognize that teaching community engagement in a practical rather than abstract way is key. This paper presents community-engaged architecture and design pedagogy as potential methods for informing the shift in the role of the architect from top-down to ground-up. This paper presents the author’s pedagogical experimentation based on 25 years of teaching live projects in socially engaged architecture and activism. It describes how a pedagogy combining architecture and activism resulted in the development of an interdisciplinary commons curriculum. The curricula aimed to increase the influence of design practitioners in the development of deliberatively democratic neighborhoods by creating new design practices and outputs. Teaching the political role of the architect from the ground-up rather than from the traditional top-down perspective is challenging, as only a few historical case studies can legitimize and inform its development. This paper describes the content of two pedagogical formats. The ‘Architecture and Activism’ postgraduate architecture and design studio and the following ‘Design for Cultural Commons’ interdisciplinary design postgraduate program. They were both designed to have real-world influence. The ‘Design for Cultural Commons’ postgraduate program enabled the development of a curriculum ranging from modules in social science, art and politics to systems thinking, which is required knowledge for complex neighborhood practices. The city was used as a field of study to discover new knowledge through students’ community engagements. Various theoretical frameworks were employed to develop new forms of emancipatory pedagogy, helping the author unlearn the norms of conventional architectural education. The practice of recalibrating architectural canons and values into a common-based curriculum development is discussed through the framing of learning commons. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spaces and Practices of Everyday Community Resilience)
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18 pages, 13153 KB  
Article
Relational Resilience and Reparative Design: Participatory Practices and the Politics of Space in Post-Apartheid Johannesburg
by Jhono Bennett
Architecture 2025, 5(4), 111; https://doi.org/10.3390/architecture5040111 - 12 Nov 2025
Viewed by 798
Abstract
This paper explores how collective resilience is built and sustained through situated, relational, and reparative approaches to design within conditions of deep spatial inequality. Focusing on Johannesburg’s Slovo Park settlement and the long-standing 15 year collaboration between the Slovo Park Community Development Forum [...] Read more.
This paper explores how collective resilience is built and sustained through situated, relational, and reparative approaches to design within conditions of deep spatial inequality. Focusing on Johannesburg’s Slovo Park settlement and the long-standing 15 year collaboration between the Slovo Park Community Development Forum (SPCDF) and 1to1—Agency of Engagement, it examines how participatory tool-making—centred on two keystone tools, the Blue File (a community-held, cloud-based knowledge repository) and the Timeline Tool (a multi-workshop planning and accountability device)—supports iteration, voice change, leadership transitions, and decision-making “with the map in hand.” Grounded in Southern urbanist theory and spatial justice scholarship, the paper re-politicises resilience as ongoing negotiation, repair, and shared authorship. It details how a map-based pointing practice translated situated knowledges into spatial choices; how the Blue File preserved continuity and evidence through leadership turnover; and how the Timeline Tool embedded care and transparency. Alongside benefits, the paper surfaces key tensions—expectation management, idea overload, triage and prioritisation, and legitimacy during leadership changes—and shows the concrete decision protocols used to move from many inputs to buildable design options. It concludes with ethical reflections for practitioners working in postcolonial/post-apartheid contexts and offers transferable lessons for allied urban conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spaces and Practices of Everyday Community Resilience)
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15 pages, 10020 KB  
Article
Socioecological Transition and Community Resilience: Learning from 12 Social Experiences in Seville (Spain)
by Manuel Calvo-Salazar, Antonio García-García, Francisco José Torres-Gutiérrez, Luis Berraquero-Díaz and Marian Pérez Bernal
Architecture 2025, 5(4), 106; https://doi.org/10.3390/architecture5040106 - 5 Nov 2025
Viewed by 946
Abstract
A major challenge that will confront our society in the coming years is the socioecological transition. This involves a profound, systemic shift in how human societies interact with ecological systems. Beyond merely becoming “greener” or adding new technologies, it is about reorganising economies, [...] Read more.
A major challenge that will confront our society in the coming years is the socioecological transition. This involves a profound, systemic shift in how human societies interact with ecological systems. Beyond merely becoming “greener” or adding new technologies, it is about reorganising economies, lifestyles, institutions and cultural values to align with the planet’s ecological limits. The change also requires transforming the fundamental structure of societies to ensure their deep interconnection and compatibility with natural flows and ecological systems. To this end, it is valuable to explore the small, scattered practices which are currently leading to new organisational solutions or socioecological improvements. These initiatives are often regarded as forms of community resistance, adopting various approaches and strategies, which result in a disparate array of configurations. A comprehensive approach is thus needed to identify common patterns of development. A set of meaningful practices was analysed. The sample actions all took place in the urban context of Seville, a city located in Southwestern Europe and spanned various arenas driven by the transition to sustainability. Following the principles of qualitative research and a case study design, we adopted a qualitative method based on open-ended interviews, emphasising situated knowledge and collective construction of meaning. Moreover, a methodological approach based on interviews and further categorisation was followed to describe and organise ideas, motivations, risks, outcomes, as well as how the experiences evolved. The findings revealed that the core motivation driving the initiative in its initial phases is key. Outcomes nevertheless vary significantly depending on the initiative objectives. Generally, actions focused on specific elements—such as defending precise locations or activities—tend to be more successful and abundant. But the ones based on professional developments end up being somewhat stifled since they depend on the market to succeed. However, most rely somehow on public subsidies or support from public institutions, and their activities tend to diminish when such resources are reduced or withdrawn. The question is therefore how to make these initiatives more resilient in the future. The socioecological transition offers a path to strengthen social cohesion, empower collective action, and generate locally rooted and ecologically sustainable alternatives. Building community resilience—the capacity of local communities to adapt, recover and thrive amid these challenges—is, therefore, essential. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spaces and Practices of Everyday Community Resilience)
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21 pages, 6881 KB  
Article
Agency, Resilience and ‘Surviving Well’ in Dutch Neighborhood Living Rooms
by Louwrens Botha, Oana Druta and Pieter van Wesemael
Architecture 2025, 5(4), 101; https://doi.org/10.3390/architecture5040101 - 23 Oct 2025
Viewed by 1178
Abstract
Literature on community resilience has argued that it is (re)produced through sustained collective practices, and cautioned against neoliberal ‘resiliences’ which serve to justify state withdrawal and disinvestment. A critical and progressive understanding of resilience accounts for this by politicizing everyday practices and foregrounding [...] Read more.
Literature on community resilience has argued that it is (re)produced through sustained collective practices, and cautioned against neoliberal ‘resiliences’ which serve to justify state withdrawal and disinvestment. A critical and progressive understanding of resilience accounts for this by politicizing everyday practices and foregrounding community agency. More research is needed to show how these concerns are spatialized in different social, political, and economic contexts. This paper investigates the self-managed ‘buurthuiskamer’ (neighborhood living room) as a site of everyday practices of community resilience in the Netherlands. These spaces represent a historical form of social infrastructure being reinterpreted in the post-welfare-state, post-austerity urban context. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in four such spaces, we use buurthuiskamers to illustrate a critical and plural understanding of community resilience based on cultivating agency. We show how communities ‘survive’ by defending and enhancing everyday urban livability in the present; how they move beyond mere survival towards communal ‘thriving’; and how participants are empowered to take collective action and decisions to ‘transform’ towards more just and inclusive futures. Finally, we highlight the structural precarity underpinning these spaces; the tension between the roles of meeting spaces as neutral social infrastructure and as spaces of belonging and appropriation; and the ambivalent mediating position they occupy between neoliberal local government and local communities. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spaces and Practices of Everyday Community Resilience)
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30 pages, 16545 KB  
Article
The Socius in Architectural Pedagogy: Transformative Design Studio Teaching Models
by Ashraf M. Salama and Madhavi P. Patil
Architecture 2025, 5(3), 61; https://doi.org/10.3390/architecture5030061 - 15 Aug 2025
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 6758
Abstract
Despite a global trend toward socially engaged higher education, architectural pedagogy continues to grapple for a coherent approach that systematically and genuinely integrates socio-cultural dimensions into design studio teaching practices. Defined as the interwoven social, cultural, and political factors that shape the built [...] Read more.
Despite a global trend toward socially engaged higher education, architectural pedagogy continues to grapple for a coherent approach that systematically and genuinely integrates socio-cultural dimensions into design studio teaching practices. Defined as the interwoven social, cultural, and political factors that shape the built environment, the socius is treated peripherally within architectural pedagogy, limiting students’ capacity to develop civic agency, spatial justice awareness, and critical reflexivity in navigating complex societal conditions. This article argues for a socius-centric reorientation of architectural pedagogy, postulating that socially engaged studio models, which include Community Design, Design–Build, and Live Project, must be conceptually integrated to fully harness their pedagogical merits. The article adopts two lines of inquiry: first, mapping the theoretical underpinnings of the socius across award-winning pedagogical innovations and Google Scholar citation patterns; and second, defining the core attributes of socially engaged pedagogical models through a bibliometric analysis of 87 seminal publications. Synthesising the outcomes of these inquiries, the study offers an advanced articulation of studio learning as a process of social construction, where architectural knowledge is co-produced through role exchange, iterative feedback, interdisciplinary dialogue, and emergent agency. Conclusions are drawn to offer pragmatic and theoretically grounded pathways to reshape studio learning as a site of civic transformation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spaces and Practices of Everyday Community Resilience)
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1 pages, 117 KB  
Correction
Correction: Khonsari, T. Community Action: An Architecture and Design Pedagogy. Architecture 2025, 5, 115
by Torange Khonsari
Architecture 2026, 6(1), 35; https://doi.org/10.3390/architecture6010035 - 3 Mar 2026
Viewed by 239
Abstract
The Institutional Review Board Statement and Informed Consent Statement need to be updated in the original publication [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Spaces and Practices of Everyday Community Resilience)
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